Cancer is the leading cause of death in modern societies. Billions of dollars are spent upon clinical diagnosis and treatment of this disease. In addition to these expenditures, a substantial amount of money is spent on the quest for a cancer cure.
Treatment for a variety of cancers often is more debilitating than the disease itself.
One attempt to address this problem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,251,384, which describes a method for following the progression of metastasis of a primary tumor in which organ tissues are removed from a vertebrate subject that has been modified to contain tumor cells that express GFP; the excised tissues are observed for the presence of fluorescence. The problem with the method of this patent is that, every time an analysis is desired of a living organism, surgery must be performed.
In published United States patent application 20010019715A1, a process is described in which a combination of a cytotoxic T-lymphocyte inducing composition and an agent which is capable of neutralizing or down regulating the activity of tumor secreted immunosuppressive factors is administered. The process of this application does not involve detection of malignant cells within a living organism and their subsequent treatment therein.
It is an object of this invention to provide a process for identifying, labeling, isolating, and treating diseased cells within an organism, such as cancer cells.